Is spoilerism a form of terrorism?

[LoZoccolo]

If a left-wing third party or independent candidate has no indication of winning* and still runs in a close race, is it a way of threatening people with the harm inflicted by the Republicans for political purposes?

* The first part of this sentence is very, very, important, and may have to be read more than once.

[Bonobo]

1. That's called Democracy.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Spoilerism is structurally built into our system by both main parties. New York

State gets around it by allowing fusion voting, but most places it's been outlawed by the Dems and the Repos alike.

As ye sow...

[Bicoastal]

3. Can we STOP referring to people who DON'T kill innocent civilians as "Terrorists"?!

Jeez, I wish this word had never entered the language. It's a habit I hope liberals haven't picked up from the far right.

[lcordero2]

5. not on topic

but I use the term "Economic Terrorism"

[gulliver]

4. Both are forms of asymmetric conflict. n/t

[crikkett]

7. but terrorists aim to rule by fear. Spoilers don't.

Spoilers can affect change in the major parties by grabbing only a small percentage of the vote. The parties then adjust to try to grab the attention of this "undecided" or "independent" group of people next time around.

[gulliver]

11. Terrorism and spoilerism are structurally the same, but ethically ...

... different. And that is not to say that spoilerism is ethically superior to terrorism. A lot depends on concepts like time scope and values, IMO. Nader gave us Bush, and it is possible that Bush started a fire that won't ever go out. That would make Nader's particular act of spoilerism the most successful (and ultimately evil) act of asymmetric conflict ever perpertrated.

On the other hand, maybe Nader's own formulation of "making things worse to make them better" will actually pan out. It could be that the world needed to experience global scale folly and hatred one last time before the weapons at our disposal become truly intractable. I don't think the current ME situation is what Nader had in mind, though, any more than I think the current Iraq situation is what Bush had in mind.

Asymmetric conflict (military, political, rhetorical) is anti-social on its face, IMO. It is teaching the opposition the "hard way." I think society needs to learn a lot of new ways of achieving fairness and understanding without destruction, threats, and deliberate division. Otherwise, the simpliciy of destruction vs. the complexity of creation will work against us to a bad end.

[LoZoccolo]

12. Uh, yes they do. n/t

[Bonobo]

13. lame way to kick a(nother) lame thread.

[stranger81]

6. They're both in the eye of the beholder . . . . {eom}

[ulysses]

8. erm,

no.

[Totally Committed]

9. There is a big difference between terrorism and

opportunism, cynicism, or just plain stupidity.

A candidate of the description in the first part of your sentence could be guilty of any of those three, but I don't think "terrorism".

TC

[LeftishBrit]

10. No - under the circumstances you describe, it could be a damaging and perhaps unethical action

Though even then, it would be very different in a race where overall control is going to be very close, versus one where the overall parliamentary/ congressional majority is clearly going to be large for one party.

Perhaps one could consider electoral reform, to make a multi-party system more viable.

But, even under the circumstances where it would be undesirable, it's not terrorism. Bad enough that the Republicans call everything they don't like 'terrorism'. Let's not stoop to that level.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

14. No, as ten minutes with a dictionary will reveal, but it's still a bad thing.

It doesn't involve the threat to commit acts of violence, so it's not terrorism. Terrorism is one of those words, like "war" and "genocide" that gets massively abused.

That doesn't mean it's not a stupid and harmful thing to do, though.

[ulysses]

15. "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush"

is it a way of threatening people with the harm inflicted by the Republicans for political purposes?

:shrug:

[ulysses]

17. hey, it's post-election.

Let's talk.

[onenote]

16. spoilers cut both ways

look at Montana. But for the goofy "libertarian" who picked up 10,000 votes (a libertarian who opposes abortion and same sex marriage BTW), Burns might well have won and the repubs would still control the Senate.

[murdoch]

18. How about the communist parties in Western Europe?

The communist parties in Germany, France, Spain and Italy never won an election (well actually, they probably did win in Italy during the 1940s but that's another story) yet they had a profound effect on politics. While the US was setting up military bases around the world, the Western European countries were de-colonizing. There's a legacy of worker militancy that exists to this day. They had a major effect on politics yet they never won an election.

You're also focusing on one election. The Republican party when it started didn't win an election. It took a while to get going.

With the Democratic leadership being all DLC and talking like Republicans, I don't really see the problem anyhow. The message I'm interested is so buried it makes me yearn for the good old speeches of William Jennings Bryan and FDR. When so many working class people are voting Republican, you know the problem is not with the Republicans but the Democrats. The Democrats say so little about worker solidarity and workers needs that many workers vote Republican.

[Unvanguard]

19. They also benefited from electoral systems saner than

first-past-the-post, though.